PITTSBURGH — Conquests at CONSOL Energy Center are no longer an easy get for the Flyers, but then they no longer appear to be the easy patsies they were in this season’s first month.

Brayden Schenn scored twice and Ray Emery had plenty of defensive assistance in shutting down the high-powered Pittsburgh Penguins Wednesday night as the Flyers continued their recovery with a 2-1 victory that barely ruffled their cool coach’s demeanor.

“Just another game, boys,” Craig Berube said. “We’ve got a long way to go.”

True enough. And the Flyers aren’t going to get carried away with a victory here, where they are 7-1-1 since the Consol Energy Center was built. But this one comes with the realization that this team has come quite a distance from a confidence standpoint.

Fresh off a surprising, 5-0 blitz of the Ottawa Senators the night before, the Flyers neither appeared to be weary from their road travels nor worried about facing a kingpin team on the other side of the Metropolitan Division standings.

What they did get was a rested Penguins club that had lost their previous two games and has been decidedly chilled of late. Scoring bosses Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin hadn’t scored a goal in their previous seven and 10 games, respectively. The chill was evident in a series of missed shots that aided the Flyers’ cause on this night.

That said, the Flyers (7-10-1) can feel rejuvenated with this third straight victory. For them, there are signs of recovery everywhere on the ice. The major system tweaks it took a couple of weeks for Berube to incorporate have seemingly taken hold. Claude Giroux doesn’t seem to be playing under a dark cloud any longer. The power play is improving. The defense has been fairly steady. The sacrificial shot-blocking is evident. The goaltending has, for the most part, been outstanding. And that’s from both Steve Mason and Wednesday night’s starter Ray Emery (30 saves).

Under Berube, who took over three games and three losses into the season, the Flyers have been a .500 team. He has not found a way for them to light up the scoreboard every night, but the back-to-basics way the Flyers neutralized the superior speed of the Penguins with simple yet effective defensive positioning and physical play on every shift was indicative of the changes they are embracing.

“We didn’t get off to a great start,” Berube said, “but our goalie was good and gave us a chance to win; get our feet under us. More than anything I like the fact that we grinded the win out. We played the night before but we did a lot of little things right, I thought.”

Yet it could have started very badly, as it took only 19 seconds for the Penguins to take an apparent 1-0 lead. A slow decision to let the replay booth bosses in Toronto take a look at the goal resulted in the decision that Penguins winger Chris Kunitz had kicked the puck past Emery.

“We might have been sleeping on the first one there,” Schenn said. “We had a lucky break. Maybe it did wake us up.”

It certainly seemed that way. But once they found their way, the Flyers set about keeping the Penguins away from the attack zone.

“I think guys are being more aware of playing simple,” Berube added. “Basically it’s just being simple. Playing the system and trusting the system and skating and getting on people and forcing turnovers.”

As a prime example, Berube pointed to the first Flyers goal, which came off a great forechecking play by Wayne Simmonds. He crashed into the Penguins zone, took the puck, shook off two checking Penguins and got a pass over to Schenn for what turned into a 1-0 lead with 3:58 left in the first.

The Penguins seemed to shrug that off with ease, however, and began to turn up the heat in the second. But Emery, who had seen Mason shut out the Senators the night before, got better as the game went on. He began piling up the sharp saves, but in the midst of the storm the Flyers began to take penalties.

They finally cracked just in time for Crosby to crack the scoreboard for the first time in too long. He had slipped behind the unseeing Nick Grossmann in the Flyers’ slot, accepted a pass from Malkin and easily beat Emery at 8:29 of the second for a game-tying goal.

Perhaps the Flyers would have crumpled after that a few weeks ago, as they did in a 4-1 home loss to the Penguins Oct. 17. But this team looks different now, adhering to a system that seems to better suit it.

So the Flyers worked to take the lead back, this time by putting two players in front of Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury on a power play. When Jake Voracek finally got a shot through, first Steve Downie touched the puck, then Schenn helped tuck it home at the 18:40 mark for 2-1.

“Anytime you can help contribute to winning hockey games it’s a good feeling,” Schenn said. “We got the two points tonight and we’ll move on.”

Adopting a road posture against the powerful Pens, the Flyers kicked into defense-only mode in the third period. They needed more brilliant work by Emery and a few more gift misses by the Penguins, but held on for the season’s most significant win.

TWO THUMBS UP

Ray Emery never stumbled or drifted, he was just solid.

Brayden Schenn is starting to heat up.

TWO THUMBS DOWN

Evgeni Malkin was good, but was again distracted by Sean Couturier’s antagonizing.